Pages

Monday, 14 January 2013

This summer, strawberries have been particularly delicious and thankfully cheap. I have been eating them by the punnet, at least one per week or more if I can get to the store regularly.

I have been adding them to smoothies and slushies, macerating them with lemon and sugar, mixing them into flapjacks in the morning and snacking on them just as they are.

I can’t get over how sweet they are this season. Even the stock standard producers are giving us succulent little beauties that remind me of my mother’s garden.

My mum grew a large patch in our sunny front yard, but it seemed like the skinks always got to them first. Worst of all they were very wasteful skinks because they'd gum a berry then move onto the next one without finishing it. When I’d head outside to pick a few they’d all be squashed and mushed, but still attached to the plant as if it was some hilarious skink practical joke.

I decided to go a little crazy for our New Years Day afternoon tea and with four punnets at my disposal I made this fabulous strawberry tart. The curd tasted amazing, the tart shell was perfectly crisp and the fresh strawberries on top gave a burst of juice to contrast with the creamy filling.

There are three steps to this recipe: the curd, the tart shell and the assembly. If you want, buy a tart shell but don’t cut corners on the wonderful strawberry curd.

Beautiful looking tart Anna, I would like to inform you the reason many of the strawberries are so sweet now is from intense selective breeding. The strawberry plants genes have been so mutated now that when you try & collect seed & grow it all that results is a strawberry plant that never flowers or fruits (sterile). I recommend growing your own wild/alpine strawberries as they can self seed (or you can help them & put seeds into punnets) & before you know it you have little wild strawberry plants everywhere. The wild strawberry fruit aren't as large or sweet as the new mutant breeds but the actual strawberry flavour/smell is far more intense. You would not believe how amazing your tart would taste with 250g of the wild/alpine variety.